Feeding kitchen project pictures

Click on this one to get a really rough- not to scale idea of the porperty and where the pics were taken from. It may help and it may not!!
















this is a pic of the area from the back door looking down the descent of land. A small fence here-- about 5 feet long- to keep kids from going down this area would be good.















This is a pic from the top of the stairs looking down to the area where the building would be.
















this is a pic from the stairs showing where the small fence is needed.















this is a pic from the "driveway" showing the bathroom and the area where the proposed building would go.















Thi si a pic from where the proposed building would be- showing the existing building and "porch".















this is the existing bathroom. If time and money permits, it would be nice to put something up here.

Pic Blog

Jacob-- pretty intreagued with the starfish behind him...














Love this tree in Balboa park. The roots look like a waterfall!















kittens--s till nursing at 5 months old...















Cowboy Jake...















This is "Pozole". a traditional Mexican soup with pork or chicken, usually, hominy and peppers. After it's cooked and in your bowl- you add cabbage, raw onions, cilantro, lime and radishes.
it is VERRRY good!!















Friday night is family night at the McDonald's. We play games, watch a movie or go out and do something special together. Each kid gets a night to choose the activity and the meal. The parents get a night too! This night we played Jenga!















This is Shar hanging out at a friends b'day party. Volunteers at Grace Children's home have a beachfront condo with a pool and hottub-- so they let us use it for a birthday party! It was VERY nice!
















This is Jacob's famous "Belly Move". He will show it to anyone he meets for the first time- It seems to freak some folks out-- with reason!!
















This is the boys hanging out in a huge tree with a cool root system at Balboa Park in San Diego...
















our crazy cat climbing the steel screen door-- going after moths on the outside...
















Elijah's Birthday cake-- a "litterbox" cake- made in a new (to us) litterbox! complete with tootsie rolls for effect!

November Prayer letter

Hello Valued Prayer partners!

We certainly do appreciate your partnership with us! Thank you so much for your prayers over the last month since our last update!

The last little while I have been marking my Pastoral and Leadership Training students on their teaching methods. The main idea of the class was to enable them to expositorily teach the Scriptures and get the meat out of them in order to grow their congregations spiritually. One of the main needs in churches here is for strong, deep Biblical teaching and this is what we are hoping to accomplish.

I've had 6 students teach so far, from real newbies to seasoned pastors. Overall they are doing pretty well, although it seems to me that for some, the more experience they have the more difficult it has been for them to learn something new. Please pray for our students that they will learn to take the meat of Scripture and feed their folks a steady diet that the people may grow up in Christ and not be tossed around by the mass of false teachers that we have here. (Eph 4:14-15) Read my blog for more details of this part of the ministry!!

The teaching at Calvary Chapel Bible College is continuing. They've asked me to teach another class next semester, I'm just in the process of praying about what book to teach on. Please pray with me on this!

NEW NEWS

I've been given an opportunity to go down to southern Mexico for a week or so in early December. One of our YUGO Missionaries, Efrain Torres, had started a ministry down in his hometown of Acatita, Sinaloa. He is leading a Canadian group down there to do some evangelism in December and invited me to come along to see what is up. I'm looking for a place to take my Pastor and Leaders Training grads to next spring. This area is ripe for the message of Jesus Christ with very little Christian witness. See this article (page 2) from a sister mission MGF who has assisted in some work there...

Please pray that God would supply the finances for this trip-- it is in less than a months time away!

Speaking of finances...

Our last month was quite low. For only the 3rd time since being here we failed to receive a full check. As a matter of fact, our take home amount was about half of what we usually get. So in November we have canceled all non-essential driving are cutting back on our groceries, have shelved a vehicle for the month and are spending as little as we can. God is good and is helping us to reevaluate our needs. Because of having to go out and mark students-- that travel has increased markedly these last few weeks, which means we can do little else! Praise God we had full support before this so our cupboards are doing OK, but we cannot go too many more months like this!!

Please pray that our regular support will be back up to normal this coming month and that God will also provide for the trip to Acatita to help spread the gospel and disciple brand new believers.

Language Acquisition

Finally we're asking pray for our language acquisition. We are finding that Shar and the boys are going through some pretty intense isolation as their limited skills in Spanish hamper their abilities to integrate with the people around them. We had been praying about sending the boys to a local private school-- so they could learn Spanish, make friends and give Shar more time to concentrate on Spanish. But that is not working out.

Our next thought is that maybe we need to take some more intense language studies. They say if you have about 6 months of intense, daily full time study you can become fluent in the language. We've had 1 month of study like that and the rest has been learn as you go. We've probably all met people in Canada from "the old country" who never really did learn English well enough to get by outside of the family- and that is not what we want to have happen with us!

So we are hoping to do 2 months of Spanish this summer in Ensenada, about 120km south of here. 5 days a week 6 hours a day. Please pray that God would give us wisdom and direction in that and that we'd get enough Spanish for me to be fluent and Shar and the kids to be conversant. We'd love for them to be able to get into the community with activities like soccer, swimming lessons, kids and ladies activities at church. We'd also like them to be able to make friends and share the gospel with our neighbours.

Thank you so much for your partnership with us! It is a privilege to represent you down here in Northern Mexico! We are laying up treasures for ourselves in heaven together! I pray that God will meet all your needs according to His Riches in Christ Jesus! (Php. 4:19)!

God bless!!

Mike, Sharlene and the boys

5 Services in a day...

Last Sunday I had the opportunity to attend 5 services-- 1 of our church in Rosarito and the other 4 in the churches of my students.

We've been learning about teaching methods and principles. It has been a long time coming- almost 2 years- since we started the process- and this is really the proof as to whether or not they "got it" or not!

So we went to Church at Capilla Calvario Rosarito -- our church in Rosarito. We have 3 services each day to accommodate the growing church. 5 or 6 years ago they were 40 people meeting together starting a church in Northern Baja. Today it is a dynamic Bilingual church in a bicultural area. We live in a unique area in that 50% of Mexicans have their visas and can cross the US border-- and many do- for shopping, entertainment, work and to visit friends and family (many of whom cannot cross borders). We also receive the lions share of deported Mexicans from the US. Every night hundreds of Mexicans being deported are dropped off at the border and told "good luck" as they enter a country that has become foreign to them. A few of the folks in our church are in that category. They were brought over into the US as preschoolers, raised there, schooled there. It is home. They are culturally Americans. But upon getting in trouble with the law, they are dropped off in Tijuana with a few bucks and a set of clothes. We have many of these folks in our church who either found Jesus in Jail, or while they've been here in Mexico. They are bilingual, bicultural and are learning to fit in both cultures.

Then we have the missionaries who are from the US and Canada and other places. They are not fully North American anymore nor Mexican - but again are bicultural- many bilingual. We congregate here too.

The church is now over 400 strong and continuing to grow. This summer they baptised over 40 new believers. The church is growing numerically and spiritually. One new missionary said recently that she has grown more spiritually at our church in the last 4 months in Mexico than she ever has. We are very thankful for our church and their dedication to preach the Word of God, verse by verse, chapter by chapter no matter who it offends. Every Sunday People are offered the gift of Salvation in Jesus and almost every Sunday someone repents and places their faith in Jesus.

Well after being in the second service last Sunday (from 10-11:15am) We went home, had a quick lunch and Ivan and I went out to the Colonias to listen to my students teach.

It was a bit of a roller coaster day in that somethings went very well and others were quite disappointing.

We were late to the first church, but when we got there they were still singing (probably an hour or more after they started!) As we got there, they shuffled us up to the front seats (!!) in a church of about 50 people. They had an old Fender Monitor for their speaker in the front. All sound that came out of it was LOUD and SHRILL. And we were about 6 feet from the speaker.

Mexicans are generally pretty emotional, so this is shown in church as well. By the time the next round of singing was done, I could barely hear!

My student did her teaching and it was OK. I don't know how often she gets to teach or preach-- but I think it's fairly often. So I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't better, but it was pretty good. She had some good points and her interpretation was good, but she was missing a lot of application. Overall I was pretty pleased with the job she did.

We were late and so had to leave as people came up for "ministry time" ( to be prayed for) and so excused ourselves and rushed off to our next assignment.

We were 15 minutes late and at this church- they start on time. So the student there decided to pray lots and give lots of background information to stall until we got there!! It was Sunday school with about 20 adults.

She did a fantastic job and was passionate about what she was teaching. She did an excellent job of communicating it in an understandable way and we were all able to come out of it with some good points of application. I was VERY impressed with her work, but I was expecting it too. She is always asking Questions in class, participating, investigating-- asking about their own denominational teachings and where they are found in the Scriptures (sometimes they are not!!) and has had one of the most teachable spirits int he class.

Next was church service time at the same church-- we sang for an hour or so, had some time where people could come up and give testimony and then the teaching time. This is where the roller coaster went down again. The speaker there had not done the assignment as I had asked him. It even seemed as if he had completely ignored it and went back to the old way of doing things. The normal way of "preaching" in some of these churches is to read a passage of Scripture and start speaking about other things!! And that is what he did for about 30 minutes. No life application, no real meat. Just milk.
I came away from that place REALLY discouraged. But not surprised. He's been leading in churches for 11 years. And it is very difficult to teach someone new ways of doing things. Although he has been faithful at class, he hasn't always seem convinced of what I'm teaching.
I had the chance to talk to him the other day. I have been very gracious to them in the past, and patient ( they mention this all the time...) so I'd realized I'd earned the right to be hard for a few minutes. I called him out on his lack of preparation and his lack of study. I admonished him to start feeding the people meat or else they will always be babes in Christ. His response was that on Sunday and Wednesday evenings they don't want teaching-- they want music, prayer, testimonies and a little preaching. I've been down here long enough to know that that is not enough for these folks. What happens is they get that for a while, never grow and then leave the church-- either for good- or to search for another one. There are countless stories of churches growing and collapsing because no one ever grew and figured out how to live in community. So as soon as one little thing goes wrong- they bolt and take people with them.

I am going back in 2 weeks to re-test him. and I'm hoping it goes much better.

We had to leave there early too because the next church was a ways away (turned out to be an hour away) in the middle of Tijuana's hills and canyons in an area I'd never been to before.

It was surprisingly dark in the area-- I suppose that there is little electricity in the neighbourhoods and that that there is up there is stolen...

I parked beside someone Mustang ( the horse kind- not the Ford kind) and went into the little ramshackle church building. It was very small (probably seats for 45 folks) and again they shuffled us up to the front. We arrived at the last song of an hours worth of worship to hear the last message of the day at 7pm at night.

Their speaker system was incredible. They had 2 speakers outside so the entire canyon could here them- they were about 3 feet tall by 3 feet wide and really good quality. Inside they had 2 speakers that were about 5 feet tall. Again we got to sit in front of them! It is hard to believe the speaker systems that these churches have. Some have excellent sound systems and no roof even-- their priorities definitely lie in the ability to make the sound ring out in the church and the neighbourhood!!

I wasn't sure what to expect from this speaker. He is a quiet student, but always seems reflective in class. He is a student of God's Word, very humble, trusts Jesus for everything. When he does speak in class- it is always worth listening to. When he gave us an overview of his message, I thought I was maybe a bit hard on him as I asked him what the result he wanted out of his congregation who will hear it. How do you want them to change. Well he took that very well and ran with it. He is not a regular preacher. He is very new to leadership in the church, but his was the best message, by far, of the day. At the end of the message he asked people if God had been speaking to them to come up front for prayer. Usually this prayer time in these churches is reserved for prayer for healing, or release from addictions etc. But here he specifically asked if God was speaking to them and asking them to repent and become more Christlike to come up to the front for prayer. He did so in a humble way, but with authority. about 15-20 people of the 45 folks came up asking for prayer, indicating their need to change.

I stood there and reflected on my roller coaster day, some getting it and applying themselves, others not. And God seems to speak to my heart. He seemed to say that not everyone gets it-- not everyone wants to work at their relationship with Him- not everyone is teachable. But every once in a while you catch one or two or three that get it... that want to learn, want to grow and want to serve Him and see others become more like Him. And this guy-- He got it... I pray that he continues on!!

We have 2 more courses to take-- Church History and Missions / evangelism,/ Discipleship.

Please continue to pray that they "Get it" and become servants who lead.

God bless,

Mike

Homeschol and ministry update

Fall here looks an awful lot like Summer and late Spring, but it brings about a change of pace and direction that let you know the unofficial "New Year" has begun!

Homeschool
Shar started homeschool up a little more than a week after we returned to Mexico. Elijah is in Grade 7, Caleb in Grade 5 and Jacob in Grade 2. They are all doing well and enjoying school as much as the average kids!

This year for Spanish they are working on Rosetta Stone's homeschool Spanish program. In the 2 months that they have been at it- I would say it is the most effective program they've worked with yet. They work for 1/2 hour a day and the change in their ability and confidence in Spanish has been noticeable. The boys have 2 friends in our neighbourhood who speak only Spanish and their ability to communicate is improving as time goes on. We are thankful to see that!

Caleb's favourite homeschool class is science. He and Jacob are learning about Water Creatures this year and are enjoying learning about all God created that lives in water! It is pretty deep (pun intended :)) and we're looking forward to going to an aquarium in Long Beach, CA at the end of this month for a field trip and a low-tide tide pool excursion! Caleb loves to build things with his hands and tools. He has built a scratching post for the cats, and is currently working on a stool for outside. He can often be heard sawing, hammering or otherwise building stuff

Jacob's favourite homeschool class is Reading. He enjoys reading (especially Garfield books) and is getting better at it all the time. One of Jacobs favourite things to do is play with the dogs. He especially enjoys playing fetch with princess- our newest dog. He also still enjoys running and will run in circles, straight lines, on the ground, over top of things... even now as I write this he is walking on a table outside :).

Elijahs favourite class is reading as well. He will often be found reading one book or another and loves to go to the Library to get more books! Recently he has been working on making a wooden sword, whittling away little by little, sanding and soon to be lacquering it. He loves to research new things on the Internet and is a veritable fountain of knowledge.

Sharlene is a busy busy lady teaching these boys all they are willing to learn. Their school day starts at 8:30am with devotions and goes till about 3:00 with a half hour break in the morning and an hour for lunch. Much of her evening time is spent planning out the next day. We usually relax at night with a video. Recently we have been watching Star-Trek the Next Generation or some old spaghetti Western videos we picked up at Wal-mart (20 movies for $5.00!!). She has been missing her friend and fellow missionary Cheryl Hoople who is in Canada for medical reasons.

Leadership Training Ministry

This September I was teaching Cross-Cultural communication to some of YUGO's staff at Grace Children's Home. We had a very good time and they tell me that the information was very helpful in enabling them to serve the Mexican people in a culturally appropriate way, sharing Christ's love in a way that speaks to the hearts of our people here in Mexico!

I started up the teaching at Calvary Chapel Bible College Ensenada again. I have a class of 11 students and we are studying the Minor Prophets. There are 2 English students in the class, so I teach in English with a translator. I love teaching these guys and girls! They are interactive, dedicated to Jesus and His Word, they work hard and are a pleasure to teach! God has been teaching us all great things about His sovereignty, His grace and mercy, his heart for the World and his wrath against sin! I remember my own class on the minor prophets as a student about 11 or 12 years ago at Nipawin Bible College and hope that this class is as influential on them as mine was on me!

We continue to train pastors and leaders in Tijuana's Eastern Colonias 2 days a week. These students continue to be a blessing to me as I see them dedicate themselves first to the Lord and then to the work of the ministry and in growing in His Word. We are learning about teaching Principles and methods right now and they will be providing me with an outline of Ephesians and a lesson plan to be given in their church. I'm looking forward to seeing them at work in their setting over the next few weeks!

This first class of 10 will be graduating in April or May (depending on the weather-- how many days we get mud-stayed) and afterwards I would like to take them on a mission trip somewhere in Southern Mexico where there are no churches to give them an opportunity to use some of what they have learned in a needy area. Please pray with us about the needs associated with such a mission trip as well as the wisdom to know where to go- and how to make the connections necessary to have a meaningful ministry.

I would also appreciate prayer for the future of the pastoral training ministry. The idea is to train those folks who graduate to become teachers. I'm praying for one or two of them to have the desire to train others in their areas. I want to avoid making this a missionary-dependent ministry and so need wisdom and direction to do that. I have been asked by a couple people to consider doing a class here in Rosarito when we are done in the colonias. I've also been approached to do a class out in the colonias again-- but am hesitant to do so if we have some possible teachers out there already. We'd appreciate your prayers!


Church Assistance

We are praising God for His provision for His people here in Mexico. We have received money to sponsor 2 church's kids feeding programs in the colonias along the railroad track. For about $100.00/ week each they can feed about 30 kids / day 5 days a week. Most of these kids are lacking for food at a very basic level. Some only eat once a day- others not even that without these programs. We are praising God for those sponsors that allow us to do this much needed ministry. Each day these kids have a time of Bible teaching and then a breakfast before they go off to school!

We also have been receiving food donations every couple of weeks- about 2000lbs which is shared between 2 churches to hand out to their neighbourhoods. We hope it is an opportunity to soften hearts to the Gospel message in these poor communities!

Thank you so much for your prayers for us and your partnership in this ministry. You are truly laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven as you invest in eternity! It will be wonderful to see together the fruit that God brings about for Himself through the training of leaders and the care of the poor in Northern Baja Mexico! May God be praised and glorified in all that is done!!

Ministering together with you in Baja Mexico,

Summer Ministries

Boy is summer almost done already!?

We got back a few days ago from our summer ministry tour of Canada and I figure it's about time I report on a bit of it!!

Week 1 of camp

Week 1 was spent in Timber Bay Saskatchewan- about 1.5 hours north of Prince Albert, SK. We have been to this camp several times before and their invitation to come speak was the genesis of our trip north for the summer.

It was an interesting week. Stanley Mission is a reserve north of la Ronge and that is where the kids came from that week. There are no missionaries there, no church and only a few genuine believers in Jesus.

The temperatures were pretty cold- it felt a bit like winter to us acclimated Mexicanos, but thankfully we had a warm place to sleep with a comfy bed! Our boys were at Silver Birch Bible Camp that week- the first time all 3 could be campers- and the first time any of them had been there without us! They had a great time and still talk about the fun they had!

That gave us the time we needed to prepare messages for the camps. We came with ideas and topics- but kind of unsure how we were going to flesh it out. So we spent a good deal of the time doing this and giving the messages in the chapels. Sharlene gave 5-10 minute sessions of "kids of courage"- kids in other countries who face persecution and possible death for their faith and yet continue to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. This was a great teaching tool- as many of these kids go back to hostile environments if they choose to follow Jesus!

The kids were quite hard at first. In my 15+ years of camping ministry- probably the hardest kids I've seen. There were a lot of hurts, much fear and an amount of spiritual warfare going on.
God is faithful though and in the process of presenting His Word to the kids- there were a few who responded with repentance and faith in Jesus. There were many others, we found out, who were being attacked spiritually- feeling things, seeing things and hearing things. Satan has quite a hold on these communities and was spending time reminding these kids of who he and his minions are.

Praise God- He gave me a message about the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Light that exposed the manifestations for what they were- attempts to keep the kids in bondage- to steal-kill and destroy them! But that the King of Light had come to give them life- and to the full! over the course of a few days- a few more kids responded to Jesus offer of reconciliation through faith in His sacrifice and repentance from sins! Praise God!

It turned out to be a good week, overall and was a learning experience for many of us!

Week 2- Timber Bay

Week 2 we had the boys with us (after going to Loon lake to get them- then to Martensville to share a bit- then back to camp). This week was unique as well because the local Montreal Lake Alliance Church was there to assist us. They will be running the camp next year as they take over the whole Timber Bay Bible Center this fall. They shared a few things with us on better reaching First Nations children- and it was a great week. What a difference it is with a strong functioning church and transformed believers in a community! These kids were eager and hungry for the Word and the church was ready to do follow-up and discipleship. There were many kids this week who surrendered their lives to Jesus and it is great to hear that the church will come alongside them and walk with them in the coming days and years!!

Week 3- Turtleford

Turtleford camp (Island Lake) was a teen camp- made up of mostly churched kids from the surrounding farming communities. This camp excels in music- so for a small camp- the music was incredible! I spoke on the book of James and Shar did a kind of kids of courage aimed more at teens. It was a very good camp as we challenged the kids to live a life worthy of the calling that they have received! There were many good responses to the offer of salvation and many of the other kids entered a deeper relationship with Jesus! Praise God!

Week 4- Steeprock Bay, MB

This was the first time we'd ever been here- though we'd heard about it before. We only had one short chapel session so it was a challenge to condense the messages down and still try to be effective! God is not limited by our planning or difficulty in preparing and He touched many kids lives with several responding to God's offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. The extra time gave us more opportunity to hang with the kids- and that was nice. These were a great group of kids from the pas- a small town in north Western Manitoba. The drugs and gangs there make it more like a little inner-city though and these kids were obviously more "urban" than the ones we'd worked with in northern Saskatchewan!

On the weekends between camp we spoke at Cornerstone community church in loon lake, Martensville Baptist Church, Turtleford Baptist and Swan River Pentecostal. We visited with old friends and met new ones. We visited and were encouraged by faithful supporters and we connected with many people. It was busy, but a blessing to be able to serve in this way!

Pre-Camp

We arrived in Canada 4 days after our northern journey and stayed at Mossbank, SK for a few days at our friends the Sauers.


It was Matt Sauers 11th Birthday and he was almost jumping out of his skin to see his bestest buddy Caleb had come and brought his whole family too to celebrate his birthday!

Mossbank is a nice little town with an outdoor pool. we bought a week pass for the boys for $10.00 each and they swam every day- almost twice a day. They enjoyed themselves profusely and we did as well, visiting the adult Sauers.

Some of the big differences we notice are the security issues. They can leave the vehicle and the house unlocked, the kids are able to walk around the town without constant supervision, go to the store themselves etc. There are no fences/ gates/ barbed wire / razor wire/ block walls with broken glass on top around any of the houses. well, maybe the occasional fence- but it's usually for privacy more than protection.

It was a good few days to reconnect with friends, rest up from the long trip before a gruelling speaking schedule and reacquaint ourselves with Canada and the culture.

We had a bit of a passport ordeal in the midst of this time.

we were told several times that we could use the short passport form to apply for a passport from Canada. In Regina they made us wait in 2 lines. The first line was to check to see if your passport was filled out correctly. The second line was to see if the corrector corrected your passport correctly- then they plugged it into the computer. The average time we saw people actually processing the passport applications was probably 20 minutes- and that was AFTER their apps had been checked out for errors.

Our was rejected- and we needed a form with a guarantor. So after 1 hour, we left to figure out our next steps.

I was assured that I could use the long Canadian form and not the "living abroad" form- which was going to need a declaration in lieu of guarantor signed by a notary (cost $70.00 each). So we tried it- but in S'toon instead.

In S'toon there was only 1 line. The same person checked for errors and processed the application in usually less than 10 minutes. We were in and out and processed in 15 minutes- despite paying for 1 1/2 hours of parking meter time in the sweetest parking spot around. I almost wanted to wait it out to get what I paid for. I lost the vote though- and off we went to see our friends new baby at the university Hospital!

Irv and Mari have been married for 19 years and have adopted a wonderful girl Leah. Years ago Leah wanted a little brother or sister, but they just weren't able to have kids. Until now. Surprisingly, they got pregnant, and through a difficult pregnancy and 14+ hours of labour- had a baby boy almost 2 weeks ago. And Isaac was born! ( at least that's what I wanted them to call him- but they decided on Jaxson instead!) Everyone is healthy- and tired!

So then we went to Loon Lake to speak at church on the Sunday. we had a great time there and then scooted off to week 1 of 4 of camp!